PARAPHRASE, SYNTHESIS AND DOCUMENTATION

TASK 7, p. 82 READER

Read the following text carefully and, by paraphrasing adequately, summarise it in one or two

sentences.

The foreign languages included in the Greek curriculum include English as a compulsory language

throughout basic education, and French and/or German as selected subjects in secondary education. The less

widely spoken languages of Europe are either totally excluded or attributed no significance in comparison

with the three dominant languages, the teaching of which aims at providing students with ‘expert’ linguistic

performance that is profitable – profit understood as growth in GNP (gross national product). By learning the

dominant languages, and particularly English, it is assumed that one immediately gains access to the world

political power and to international wealth. Learning the non-dominant languages of Europe is considered to

be extravagant, sometimes exotic even, since they have no particular monetary value in the world market.

They are an ‘economic surplus’. Viewing non-dominant languages as such, however, and the decision to

reject them as legitimate knowledge in the school curricula, backfires: the result is further devaluation of

these languages – including the Greek language – as economic and social assets, and further disempowerment

of our communities as significant cultural and political entities. (adapted from Bessie Dendrinos’ work on Planning Foreign Language Education, which appeared in an

edited book on Discourse Analysis, published in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1996)

SYNTHESISING A TEXT FROM SOURCES

TASK 8, P. 82 READER

Read the following text carefully and, by paraphrasing adequately, summarise it in one sentence.

Since the 1990s there has been a steadily growing body of research concerned with how people read

functional texts, whether computer manuals or bus timetables. The patterns emerging from this research

strongly suggest that readers’ interaction with such texts is akin to a dialogue in which the reader begins

by asking a question. If there is no question, perhaps because there is nothing the reader thinks s/he wants

to know, then no reading takes place (Wright, 1988). Because the readers of functional texts start with a

question, their initial interaction with the document is to scan through rapidly looking for somewhere that

may offer an answer. They do not usually read through the information in a linear manner but jump from

section to section, sampling the content as their question changes during a single reading episode – e.g.

from ‘Will this help my headache?’ to ‘Can I take this as soon as I get home from the party or must I wait

for the alcohol to metabolise?’.

OUTLINING, PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING

Read the following text carefully and: 1. produce an outline on the use of Web in language teaching 2. use your notes to write a selective summary by mentioning MAIN points and paraphrasing adequately (100 words).

Web in language teaching

There are many reasons why EFL teachers should seriously consider using the Web in their classroom

practice. First of all, the fact that the bulk of information available on the Web is written in English by

native speakers (Meloni 1998) makes the Web a particularly appropriate means for teaching English as a

foreign language. Second, according to Eastment (2000), it is an ‘Aladdin’s cave’ of regularly updated

authentic materials ranging from newspapers and magazines to radio programmes transmitted online. The

use of the Web creates optimal learning conditions for the learners’ linguistic development, as it entails

the processing of a wide variety of written or spoken discourse (Warschauer 1997) and increases the

learners’ exposure to the target language (Vaughan 1999:5-6). This unique variety offered by a single

means can help teachers increase learners’ motivation (Warschauer 1996b) and cater for their diverse

needs, interests and learning styles (Oxford et al 1998).

An additional bonus of the Web is that it can serve as a springboard for more cross-curricular

work, since learners will be practising the target language by exploring topics pertaining to other subjects

besides English or they may be required by teachers of other subjects to gather information on various

topics by processing information written in English (Windeatt et al 1999:6-7). It can also serve as a

platform towards the development of learners’ autonomy. Learners can begin to manage their own

learning through the different paths they can follow even if all of them start from the same web page.

All these advantages might lead us to believe that the Web is a panacea which can provide solutions

to all the problems teachers have. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth than this. Teachers

should be aware of a number of complexities related to the use of the Web. First, technical problems such as

occasional difficulty in connecting, web pages that are temporarily not available or a busy period of the day

when too many users have logged on can make even the best prepared web-based lesson fall apart. Another

problem lies in the vastness of the Web which makes it difficult to locate what you want without wasting

valuable time and, secondly, in its content which is unmediated and not always appropriate, especially for

young learners.

Source:

Karagianni, E. (2001)’ Using technology in Primary Education: A Web-based lesson

for young learners’ (unpublished assignment), Patras; Hellenic Open University

OUTLINING, PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING

Read the following text carefully and: 1. produce an outline on The Importance of Women in Development. 2. use your notes to write a selective summary by mentioning MAIN points and paraphrasing adequately

(100 words).

OUTLINING, PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING

Read the following text carefully and

(i) produce an outline (in note form) of the characteristics of image-based tools

(ii) use your notes to write a selective summary by mentioning MAIN points and paraphrasing adequately

(100 words).

Researching Bullying

The first phase of the project was research to investigate the scope, frequency and nature of bullying in the school. The

student researchers had their own views on these things, but, as researchers and not representatives, were not in a position

to say that their experience was generalizable to the whole school population. Indeed, they recognised that they were a

privileged minority group within the school, and that their experiences could well be atypical. We collectively decided that

in order to find out about bullying and safety, we needed to find out the experiences and views of a more representative

cross-section of the whole student body.

At the same time, as academics, we did not want to lose the student researchers' perspectives and pretend that they

occupied an illusory neutral position. We wanted to build a practice that valued their experiences, but also put them to the

test. We had observed that in group discussions the student researchers had a tendency to slip between a representative

subject position, where they claimed to speak for their peers, and a researcher position, where they referred to the survey

data and to the need for further information. We needed to find a way to help them to shift more conclusively to a student

researcher standpoint. We decided that the best way to approach this experience dilemma was to focus on the research tools

to be used. We suggested to the students that they work with "trigger photographs", or photo-elicitation. We knew that this

was a method they would not have considered - after all they had no formal training in research and only knew about the

kinds of research tools that were conventionally used in the school curriculum and media texts - surveys and interviews.

We arrived at the idea of visual images because they seemed to offer specific advantages - they were likely to provoke

conversation, and were an economical medium for the translation of students' perspectives into a representation which

communicated effectively with their peers.

There is a growing interest in the use of visual research methods within the social sciences (Chaplin, 1994; Emmison &

Smith, 2001; Rose, 2001) and within education (Kaplan & Howes, 2004; Prosser, 1998; Thomson, in press; Walker, 1993).

Much of the writing on image-based inquiry examines the use of photography and video as a medium for collecting data

and/or of representing findings. Photo-elicitation, however, is an approach which aims to stimulate response and provoke

the production of community and local knowledge: it is an aid to the collection/production of data. It is the kind of research

"tool" (method) that is likely to be of interest to contemporary young people saturated in visual images (Kenway & Bullen,

2001).

In photo-elicitation, interviewees are shown photographs which are ready made or produced specifically for the specific

research purpose. Deliberately constructed photographs then can be the medium for expressing experience: they are a re-

enactment of a scene or scenes which the researcher-photographers want to use to stimulate responses from the sample of

people they have chosen to interview.

But such photographs do more than set a representation of an experience on to the page. It is suggested (Schwartz, 1989)

that interviewees see such photographs as akin to family albums and this "familiarity" dissipates the strangeness of the

research situation and thus interviewees answer without hesitation. The use of photographs offers one possible way to

reduce interviewee shyness and/or reticence. They are disarming and encourage conversation. In addition, Hurworth (2003)

suggests that photo-elicitation, once called photo-novella, is better called photo-voice, since it "enables people to record

and reflect their community's strengths and concerns (and) promotes critical dialogue and knowledge about important

issues through large and small group discussion". That is, the familiarity of the photograph and its domesticity supports

multiple readings and perspectives, and legitimates interpretation from diverse points of view. There is thus resonance

between the notion of photo-voice and the interests of researchers committed to allowing the voices of those with

subjugated knowledges to be heard in and through research, that is, there is congruence between the method of photo-

elicitation and the methodology of standpoint research.

Photo-elicitation therefore seemed to us to be appropriate for the students-as-researchers project in school, which aimed to

not only present previously unrecognized understandings and perspectives on schooling practices (cf. Clark-Ibanez, 2004),

but to do so through using the partiality and "insider knowledge" of the student researchers.

OUTLINING, PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING Read the following text carefully and

(i) produce an outline of the pedagogical significance of discourse markers in ESL/EFL contexts

(i) use your notes to write a selective summary by mentioning MAIN points and paraphrasing adequately

(100 words).

Discourse Markers and Spoken English: Native and Learner Use in Pedagogic Settings

Discourse markers (henceforth DMs) play a fundamental role in spoken interaction (Carter and McCarthy 2006: ch. 3).

Recent analyses of corpora of spoken interaction show that they are

represented among the top ten word forms (Allwood

1996) and that an ‘utterance particle’ is found in continuous

talk on average every 1.5 seconds (Luke 1987). There are

studies of DMs which deal with individual markers in English (Svartvik

1980; Östman 1981; Schiffrin 1986; Aijmer 1987;

Watts 1987; Andersen 1998; Stenström 1998) and small sets of English

DMs (Schourup 1985; Erman 1987; Schiffrin

1987; Aijmer 1996, 2002). Research on the study of DMs in other languages is developing

(Bazzanella 1990 (Italian);

Gupta 1995 (Singaporean English); Archakis 2001 (Modern Greek); Chen and He 2001 (Chinese); Montolío

Durán and

Unamuno 2001 (Spanish); Wouk 2001 (Indonesian)). However, relatively limited research has been undertaken on

the

range and variety of DMs used in spoken English by second or foreign language speakers. Comparative usage between

native and non-native speakers and the pedagogical significance they

have in an ESL/EFL classroom has been studied

even less, although Hays (1992), Romero Trillo (1997, 2002) and Müller (2004,

2005) are notable exceptions. The

research reviews definitions of core DMs, by classifying them according to a specific categorial

framework and by

undertaking a corpus-based analysis of use in two different pedagogic contexts in the UK and Hong Kong.

The restricted range of DMs used and the frequency of particular markers reflect the unnatural linguistic input ESL

learners are exposed to and the traditional grammar-centered pedagogic

focus which has been geared towards the literal or

propositional (semantic) meanings of words rather than their pragmatic use

in spoken language. Many locally-produced

coursebooks claiming to represent the details of English usage focus primarily on

prepositional content rather than on

discoursal use. For example, the adverb, adjective, and noun meanings of well are frequently

emphasized in an ESL

classroom, whereas its pragmatic usages in spoken English to indicate one's intention to change a topic,

to make a

suggestion, criticism, or correction, to express doubt and uncertainty about what has been said, and to mark other

emotional states such as amusement, anger, or surprise, etc. are rarely focused upon. It is likely that the low propositional

meanings of DMs have devalued their pedagogic significance, and hence contributed to their low status. It is only

commonly used for markers in written language such as firstly, secondly,

next, however, but, despite, so, because,

moreover, etc. that have been frequently attended to in the classroom. A general

neglect of knowledge of DMs in the

foreign language teaching curriculum seems to be a pedagogic reality (Romero Trillo 2002;

Müller 2005).

Although the main function of language is conventionally seen to be communicating ideas, it is through language that

interpersonal convergence (and, although more rarely, divergence) is achieved.

DMs, which constitute an aspect of

pragmatic competence that underlies one's ability to use language in culturally, socially,

and situationally appropriate

ways, are useful conversational devices, not just for maintaining discourse cohesiveness and

communicative effectiveness,

but also for interpersonal and cross-cultural interaction (Wierzbicka 1991).This study suggests a need to strengthen

learners’ pragmatic competence in spoken language by creating space to improve their

use of DMs. Incorporation of DMs

into the language curriculum is necessary to enhance fluent and naturalistic conversational

skills, to help avoid

misunderstanding in communication, and, essentially, to provide learners with a sense of security in

L2.

DMs form a part of the basic fabric of talk in pedagogic discourse and are useful contextual coordinates for both native

speakers and learners to structure and organize speech in interpersonal,

referential, structural, and cognitive categories.

On the interpersonal level, DMs are specifically useful to serve as solidarity building

devices to facilitate and to mark

shared knowledge, attitudes, and responses. Referentially, they indicate textual relationships

preceding and following the

DM. These textual relationships include cause, contrast, coordination, disjunction, consequence,

digression, comparison,

etc. Structurally, they are used to orientate and organize the discourse in progress and signal

links and transitions between

topics, such as marking the opening and closing of topics, indicating sequence, topic shifts and

topic continuation, and

summarizing opinions. Cognitively, they help in denoting the speaker's thinking processes, marking repairs

such as

reformulation, self-correction, elaboration, and hesitation in conversation, as well as marking speaker's assessment of

the

listener's knowledge of the utterances. The results accord with evidence from a growing literature in pragmatics, including

cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics, that they contribute to the management and development of discourse and

perform important textual and interpersonal functions.

From: Discourse Markers and Spoken English: Native and Learner Use in Pedagogic Settings. Applied

Linguistics 2007 28 (3):410-439, Authors: Loretta Fung and Ronald Carter

OUTLINING, PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING

Read carefully the following text which is taken from a journal article entitled “Songs, Stories, and Vocabulary

Acquisition in Preschool Learners of English as a Foreign Language” and:

(i) produce a formal outline of the main features of Songs and Stories which facilitate Preschool EFL Learners’

Vocabulary Acquisition;

(ii) on the basis of your outline, write a summary of about 100 words in which you adequately paraphrase

leaving out unnecessary details

Songs, Stories, and Vocabulary Acquisition in Preschool Learners of English as a Foreign Language

Sara Albaladejo, Yvette Coyle

SYSTEM, volume 76, pages 183-196, 2018

Songs and stories are regarded as popular and effective resources in the preschool classroom, but questions remain as

to what effect each has on incidental vocabulary acquisition. Given that vocabulary has been recognized as one of the

most important components of language proficiency (Carter & McCarthy, 2014), two teaching strategies have been

found to assist language development: direct and incidental instruction. Direct instruction focuses attention on the

target item through instructional techniques while incidental vocabulary learning involves exposure to words embedded

in a meaningful context (Penno, Wilkinson & Moore, 2002). At preschool level, a second language (L2) is experienced

through activities that are engaging and fun, and learning is enhanced by kinesthesis and the association of words with

actions. Two widely acknowledged resources that meet these prerequisites and which are believed to facilitate

vocabulary gains in preschool children are songs and storytelling (Cameron, 2001; Murphey, 1992).

Children learn words to communicate. As they develop the need to talk about things and people in their daily

lives, children acquire the linguistic signs for those referents. In doing so, three key processes occur: word-forms are

isolated in the input, potential meanings are created, and the meanings are mapped onto forms (Rohde & Tiefenthal

2000). During the first years of L1 acquisition, young children experience what is called a “vocabulary spurt”, that is, fast

vocabulary growth in nouns referring to objects around them. Relevant to this phenomenon is their surprising ability to

learn words after having been exposed to them only once, or what has been termed ‘fast mapping’ (Carey & Bartlett,

1978).

Lexical acquisition is also a crucial part of early L2 learning. In the case of young preschool learners, both the

amount (Bowers & Vasilyeva, 2010) and the quality of L2 input children are exposed to (Weitz, Pahl, Flymann Mattsson,

Buyl & Kalbe, 2010) has been positively related to vocabulary growth. Yet, while learning words in the first language is a

rapid process, inquiry into this phenomenon with young L2 learners has shown that fast mapping as a word-learning

strategy may be less effective. Although the 3-to-6-year-old preschool German children in a study by Rhode and

Tiefenthal (2000) showed some ability to partially learn invented words after 24 hours, Ellis and Heimbach (1997) found

that limited exposure to new L2 words during listening tasks was insufficient to guarantee their acquisition by five-year

old Japanese ESL learners. Similarly, Shintani (2011) reported that young Japanese ESL learners only acquired receptive

and productive vocabulary over a longer five-week-period from participating in input-rich tasks.

Given the reduced exposure to the L2 generally associated with instructional contexts, the use of age-

appropriate tools such as songs and stories, which provide children with meaningful input while engaging their

attention, would seem to be indispensable for highlighting target lexis and language patterns. The repetition and visual

imagery of stories and the rhythm, melody and gestures used with songs might actively contribute to promoting the

children’s acquisition of new word meanings, by increasing the frequency and the salience of lexical items, since the

more often a word appears and the more noticeable it is, the more likely it is to be perceived, even unintentionally. This

combination of visual and verbal modalities finds theoretical support in the Dual-code Hypothesis (Paivio, 1971), which

maintains that learning is facilitated when input is presented in multiple forms. Thus, dual-coding in the context of songs

and storytelling activities would seem to be a relevant teaching strategy for foreign language learning.

In the context of foreign language learning, both Ahrens (2011) and Ghosn (2002) recommend that teachers use

stories as soon as possible as children find them captivating and easy to understand. This idea is availed by Krashen’s

theory of comprehensible input, which supports storytelling, as stories can provide input which is beyond learners’ level

of competence. (Krashen, 1985). At the same time storytelling provides contextual clues —gestures, pictures,

intonation, etc.— that help learners understand the events narrated (Krashen, 1985). Songs also offer multiple

pedagogical benefits for language learning, since melody, rhythm and intonation are thought to facilitate the

development of children’s pronunciation and the retention of new structures and vocabulary (Forster, 2006). For young

children songs are an enjoyable, interactive and pleasant way to learn. A broad array of vocabulary items can be taught

through the repetition of popular songs, thus enhancing their potential retention in long-term memory (Murphey,

1992). However, very little research has considered the influence of stories and songs on young children’s second

language vocabulary learning in foreign language contexts.

Regarding storytelling, existing research with monolingual children and L2 learners has offered evidence that

stories can be an effective vehicle for enriching vocabulary growth. Repeated reading of stories complemented with

explanations of the target lexis has been found to promote young children’s lexical development in both L1 (Penno, et

al., 2002) and L2 learning contexts (Collins, 2010), especially when expanded definitions of key lexis are provided in the

children’s L1 (Lugo-Neris, et al., 2010). Children’s initial knowledge of vocabulary has also been highlighted as a

determining factor in lexical acquisition from storybook reading, independently of the child’s status as a first or second

language learner of English, thus emphasizing the need to intensify vocabulary acquisition from an early age. There is,

however, a need for more research on the use of stories with young language learners in instructional contexts where

exposure to the target language is limited. Existing research has focused mainly on older children and on issues other

than lexical acquisition, including the effects on learners’ comprehension of stories narrated with and without

interactional adjustments (Peñate & Bazo, 2001) or the benefits for language learning of creating and dramatizing

stories in the classroom (Ahlquist, 2013). Studies on the relationship between storytelling and lexical growth with

preschool EFL learners would seem to be needed.

Research into the benefits of music and songs for lexical acquisition has provided less robust findings. Studies

conducted with EFL learners have shown that songs can impact positively on the receptive, lexical knowledge of 5-year-

old preschool learners in Spain (Coyle & Gómez Gracia, 2014) and the receptive and productive lexical knowledge of 8-

to-11-year-old Taiwanese children (Chou, 2014). However, findings from research comparing songs and speech are less

clear-cut. Gains in productive vocabulary by Chinese–speaking kindergartners from both songs and choral repetition was

reported by Davis and Fan (2016), while Medina (1990) also found improvements in the receptive knowledge of Spanish

second-grade ESL learners after exposure to both sung and spoken texts. Similarly, on assessing the acquisition of

vocabulary by monolingual pre-schoolers through exposure to either stories or songs, Joyce (2011) found no differences

between both presentation modes. This suggests that songs might be just as effective as spoken texts (Davis, 2017).

However, in a study with French-speaking EFL learners aged between 3 and 5 years old, Leśniewska and Pichette (2014)

found a significant advantage for stories over songs in promoting receptive vocabulary acquisition. This finding appears

to contradict the commonly held assumption that songs benefit the acquisition of unknown English vocabulary more

than stories. Research on comparisons of stories and songs remains, therefore, underdeveloped.

While there is abundant research on ESL learners and monolinguals, (Collins, 2010; Joyce, 2011; Lugo-Neris, et

al, 2010; Medina, 1990) much less is known about EFL students. Differences in class sizes also make generalizations from

available studies difficult, with some interventions in small groups (Lésniewska & Pichette, 2014; Lin, 2014; Collins, 2010)

and others with a larger number of participants (Coyle & Gómez Gracia, 2014).

OUTLINING, PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING Read the following text carefully and:

1. produce an outline of factors leading to bilingualism (= speaking two languages fluently). 2. use your notes to write a selective summary by mentioning MAIN points and paraphrasing adequately (100

words).

Becoming Bilingual

Although childhood bilingualism is a worldwide phenomenon and much of adult bilingualism

results from it, few studies have examined why some children become bilingual while others remain

monolingual.

Most children become bilingual in a natural way, in the sense that their parents did not actively

plan their bilingualism, while other children’s bilingualism is the result of careful planning on the part of

their parents.

Lewis (1972) reports that in the USSR people move from one to the other republic quite

extensively, and hence interethnic marriages are common. For example, in Ashkabad, 29% of marriages

between 1951 and 1965 involved men and women of different nationalities, resulting in the children

acquiring two languages. This happens not only if both languages are used in the home but also if only

one language – the father’s, for instance – is the family language, because family members on the

mother’s side will communicate with the children in their own native language.

The proximity of other linguistic groups also leads to bilingualism in the home. For example,

Mkilifi (1978) reports that ten out of the fifteen Tanzanians he studied spoke the local language along

with Swahili before going to school. They learned the local language first, but because both parents,

especially the father, knew and used Swahili at home, they acquired that language as a second home

language and as medium of communication in the community.

Even when the other language is not spoken in the home by the parents themselves, it nevertheless

makes its way into the house and the children are exposed to it. The language may be spoken by the

parents’ friends, older relatives and their friends, neighbours, caretakers, not to mention television.

One of the main factors in childhood bilingualism is of course the school. Unless the linguistic

group in which the child belongs has its own schools or has public education conducted in its own

language, the children’s medium of instruction will be some other language. This is the case for

countless minority groups throughout the world: the Bretons in France, the Greeks in Turkey, the Kurds

in Iran, and so on. And if the ethnic composition of the school is quite varied, children adopt the school

language as a medium of communication among themselves.

Children may also become bilingual because there is a policy in the community or in the family to

make them bilingual. At the community level, different types of bilingual education programs teach the

majority language but also maintain and develop the minority language. One interesting case of

community-planned bilingualism, reported by Gal (1979), occurred in Austria at the turn of the century,

when where wealthy Hungarians would send their children to live in a German-speaking village for a

year and would welcome in exchange a German-speaking child from that village for the same amount of

time.

At the family level, parents may decide on a particular strategy to make their child bilingual. The

strategies used are quite diverse (Arnberg, 1979). One of the earliest to be written about was the “one

person, one language” formula, according to which each parent would use only their native language

with the children. Numerous case studies of bilingual children report the use of this learning strategy, the

most famous being that of Hildegard Leopold, who learned to address her father in German and her

mother in English.

Another strategy adopted by parents is to use one language in the home, usually the minority

language, and the other outside the home, the rule being that everyone must speak the home language at

all times at home.

A third strategy consists of using one language with the child initially, and then, at a specific age

(between three and five, for instance) introducing the other language. Zierer (1977) reports on a German-

Peruvian child whose parents decided that the child should become bilingual by starting with German

and delaying the learning of Spanish for at least two years.

A fourth strategy is to use the two language interchangeably in and out of the family, letting such

factors as topic, situation, person and place dictate which language should be used.

(adapted from Francois Grosjean’s book Life with Two Languages, published in 1982 by Harvard

University Press)

OUTLINING, PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING

Read the following text carefully and:

1. produce an outline of the pedagogical significance of Teaching Culture in the Information Age 2. use your notes to write a selective summary by mentioning MAIN points and paraphrasing adequately (100 words).

Teaching Culture in the Information Age

Culture teaching is obviously not a single-faceted or an easy task for foreign language educators. In the course of searching

for appropriate approaches, foreign language teachers have been turning to information technology for help in delivering

cultural lessons. In many ways, Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and culture are inherently connected. Some

researchers assert that it is impossible to separate cultural issues from devising a CALL program, for CALL is about language

and language is a cultural issue par excellence (Cameron, 1998).

Over the years, efforts have been made by CALL experts to explore the capability of computer technology in

supporting the teaching of culture. Similar to the change of beliefs in how culture should be taught in the foreign language

classroom, the exploration of computer technology for culture teaching purposes has also gone through several phases. In

the early stage, much computer-assisted language teaching software was developed with the functions of teaching not only

language but also culture. Unfortunately, commercial CALL software design has produced software that incorporated many

cultural inaccuracies and misrepresentations and thus contradicted the goal of providing learners with a culturally

authentic CALL experience (Shaughnessy, 2003). Due to content and delivery isolation and the adaptation of software

across languages, students were presented with an ethnocentric view of the world. Students could only learn vocabulary

from one cultural reference point since the culturally generic software ignored the cultural differences associated with

specific topics. To compensate for commercial software’s inability to live up to the expectations of providing assistance in

the teaching of culture and to take advantage of the technological advancements, CALL for culture teaching then began to

integrate the use of computer networks. Computer networks are seen as a channel for interactivity and authenticity and for

developing language learners’ intercultural competence (Abrams, 2002; Hager, 2005; Kramsch, 1993; Straub, 1999). Online

interactive courseware has been developed to promote the cultural understanding of EFL learners. For example, Shawback

and Terhune (2002) outlined a course that was developed using online interactive exercises and films to study language and

culture. They claimed that the automated feedback functions allowed students to actively explore the cultural aspect of the

films and enhance students’ confidence and motivation to study the language and culture. Another exemplary effort is an

EU-funded, e-learning project which aims to exploit online technology to develop intercultural business and language skills

for European managers in the construction industry (Rogerson-Revell, 2003). It advocates an integrated approach to

language and culture training, describing how a "cultural syllabus" is designed to develop users’ understanding of key

aspects of European work culture and practices alongside their professional language skills.

E-projects that took advantage of the capacity provided by computer-mediated communication have been

implemented to develop L2 learners’ intercultural competence as well (Warschauer & Kern, 2000). By using

telecommunication tools, students of different cultures have been linked to develop target language and intercultural

competence. To develop the Cultura Project, Maillet (2001) used two capacities of the World Wide Web: 1) to bring

forward, juxtapose, and connect different and multiple types of materials on the same screen, and 2) to bring users in

different cultures to engage in a discussion via a forum. The students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in

Cambridge and the Institut National des Telecommunications in France collaborated to observe, compare, and analyze

parallel materials from their respective cultures. The Cultura demonstrates how networked communication can be used to

develop foreign language students’ understanding of foreign cultural attitudes, concepts, beliefs, and ways of interacting

and looking at the world. Despite possible problems associated with foreign language intercultural interactions mediated

by Internet communication tools (Throne, 2003), characteristics of e-mail exchanges which helped to develop learners’

intercultural communicative competence have been identified (Liaw, 1998, 2001, 2003; O’Dowd, 2003). Both "alinguistic"

and linguistic aspects of the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration have been investigated to draw

instructional implications (Belz, 2002, 2003). Scholars point out that as online language learning shifts in focus from single

classrooms to long-distance collaboration projects, the focus of learning will also expand beyond language learning to an

emphasis on intercultural competence, cultural learning, and cultural literacy (Kern, Ware, & Warschauer, 2004). Although

combining computers and corpora linguistics to foster students’ intercultural competence is still an evolving approach, it

has demonstrated exciting results and certainly deserves further exploration.

OUTLINING, PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING

Read the following text on university lectures carefully

(i) produce an outline of the main points developed in the text,

(ii) use your notes to write a selective summary by mentioning MAIN points and paraphrasing adequately (100

words).

The intention of this chapter is both to describe the structure of university lectures and to identify some of the most prominent

features that contribute to this structure. My purpose is to propose a new schema for this generic type based on my analysis of

many lectures. My research into this language variety has been motivated by my experience of teaching English as a Second

Language to foreign students coming to study in Canadian universities. During the course of such teaching it became

increasingly evident that these students experienced great difficulty in processing spoken academic discourse. It seemed

important, therefore, to investigate the nature of this genre in terms of its form and content in order to be able to acquaint

students with the spoken language of academia, especially since so much of what students are required to learn is transmitted

through lectures.

I will now proceed with the description of the structure of lectures in terms of the phases that have surfaced in this and

former corpora. It is worth noting that, among the strands or phases identified, some are metadiscoursal, that is strands which

comment on the discourse itself. Of the metadiscoursal phases that occur in all of the corpora, the first is that of the Discourse

Structuring phase in which addressors indicate the direction that they will take in the lecture. Thus we see such strands

recurring with great frequency throughout the lecture as the speaker proceeds to new points. It is, as I have described

elsewhere (Young 1990: 85), an announcing phase in which a lecturer indicates to listeners new directions of the lecture.

When taken together, they form a distinctive pattern of codal choices. An equally important metadiscoursal phase is one

labelled Conclusion, where lecturers summarise points they have made throughout the lecture. The frequency with which this

and the Discourse Structuring phase occur is to a large extent determined by the number of new points made in any particular

discourse. That is, if the speaker introduces only three new points in a lecture, then there will tend to be three Discourse

Structuring and three Conclusion strands discontinuously occurring throughout the lecture. Another phase that serves

metadiscoursal purposes is that of Evaluation, which is not always as frequent as the two former metadiscoursal phases, but is

still significant. Here the lecturer reinforces each of the other strands by evaluating information which is about to be, or has

already been transmitted. Lecturers do so by indicating to the audience how to weigh such information by giving their

personal endorsement of disagreement with various aspects of the content, which represent a further structuring of the

substance of the lecture. These phases seem to be the direct result of the influence of the situational factor of tenor in the sense

that, because of the relationship between lecturers and students, the former explicitly structure their discourse by indicating

how they will proceed, following this with a summation of what has been said, and reinforcing both with an appraisal of

material, to facilitate the processing of information by the students. These phases occur across disciplines and levels,

indicating that the relationship between addressors and addressees in this situation fashions a particularly consistent structure.

Of the other phases that mark university lectures, the first, Interaction, indicates an important feature of this registerial

variety, namely the extent to which these lecturers maintain contact with their audience in order both to reduce the distance

between themselves and their listeners and to ensure that what has been taught is in fact understood. This they accomplish by

entering into a dialogue with the addressees by posing and answering questions. The other phases that compose the structure

of university lectures constitute the actual content of these discourses. The first may be alternatively labelled Theory or

Content, to reflect the lecturer’s purpose, which is to transmit theoretical information. It is in this phase that theories, models

and definitions are presented to students. This phase is interspersed with the metadiscoursal ones, and with that of Interaction,

as lecturers indicate what they are about to say, summarise different elements of the content, evaluate it and then check, in the

Interaction phase, to ensure that students have understood various points. The phase is further interspersed with strands of the

last phase that structures lectures, that of Examples. It is in this very significant phase of all of the lectures that the speakers

illustrate theoretical concepts through concrete examples familiar to students in the audience. It is interesting to note that in

several of the lectures, strands of this phase are more numerous than the theoretical ones, suggesting how important the role of

exemplification is in monologic discourse in universities.

OUTLINING, PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING

The following text has been adapted from Davies E.E. (1985) “Looking at style with advanced EFL learners”. ELT Journal 39(1): 13-19. Read it carefully in order to identify the two main opposite views presented in the text. Then: (a) prepare an outline including the arguments for and against the two views, and (b) prepare a selective summary of the two views (100 words)

In considering the choice of reading materials for advanced learners, we are faced with conflicting opinions about the usefulness of studying literary texts. On the one hand, we have Widdowson’s forceful arguments for using literature as a means of deepening students’ knowledge of the language and the way it is used (see Widdowson 1975, 1983), along with practical suggestions for how particular texts can be exploited (see, for instance Ramsaran 1983). On the other hand, we have the objections of those who feel that literature is problematic because it does not provide a good model for students to imitate. An interesting expression of this view is provided by Bernard Lott (1993) in a letter to ELT Journal in which he criticizes Ramsaran’s suggestions. He protests that Ramsaran’s examples, chosen to show how poetry can be exploited to develop students’ knowledge of English, involved ‘deviations from normal English’, whereas ‘normal English presents problems enough for learners’; and he ends with a plea for ‘more discussion on how the interest inherent in good creative writing can support the study of the normal language’ (Lott 1983:366). I do not wish at this point to debate the validity of Lott’s views about the usefulness of literature in foreign language study, but only to draw attention to the assumption underlying these remarks. They reflect what I suspect to be a quite widely-held belief –the view that there is some clear distinction between ‘normal’ and supposedly abnormal language, the latter being equated with literary texts and the former, presumably, with what might be described as more everyday, commonplace uses of language. Lott evidently feels confident that others will easily recognize what he means by ‘normal’ language, for he provides no clear definition of this, simply implying that it will lack ‘what is abnormal, elliptic, archaic, comically distorted’ and the ‘subtleties, special effects, playful nonsense, and so on’ (p.366) which he considers to distort Ramsaran’s poetic examples. ‘Normal’ language, presumably, is the kind of material we should present our students, the kind which is offered by what we would consider to be a ‘good’ textbook-language of the type commonly used and encountered by ‘ordinary’ people, and which our students too might expect to encounter if they were to find themselves living among native speakers. However, before we reject literary language and the features Lott associates with it as abnormal, I think we should look a little more carefully at the question of what kinds of language should be classed as normal. I would like to suggest that any such notion of ‘normal’ language is dangerous, in that it is likely to lead to a considerably over-simplified view of how language is used. Let us pose for a moment and consider the case of students of English who are not necessarily interested in literature, but who need to be able to cope with the kinds of language situation they would perhaps find themselves in during a short visit to Britain. Yet within this everyday language we find many of the features for which Lott criticizes poetry. There are, for instance, cases of ellipsis which produce forms which our students may well have been led to consider ungrammatical. The abbreviations they encounter when trying to read supposedly informative material may make its content more impenetrable to them than that of many a literary text. They will soon discover, too, that ordinary conversation is rarely made up of an orderly sequence of complete units, such as may have been presented to them in textbook, or taped dialogues, or even in literature; instead frequent hesitations, repetitions, changes of structure in mid-phrase, and unfinished statements are the norm. They will also have to cope with the occasional contradiction, and frequent exaggerations (there was nothing on TV last night, I’m dying for a drink); while metaphor and simile, too, are phenomena they will hear all around them (it costs the earth, her face was as long as my arm). Even if our students carefully avoid literature during the whole of their stay, they may well encounter archaism or hear observations like Manners maketh man or A soft answer turneth away wrath uttered by an apparently modern member of society. Any observant student might notice examples similar to these in the course of a very ‘ordinary’ day in Britain; but which, if any, of them might be considered part of ‘normal’ English? The point is, of course, that the kinds of feature that Lott considers to make poetry problematic for our students are not restricted to literature. Instead of assuming a single distinction between literature, which is somehow ‘distorted’, and other, ‘normal’ uses of language, we need to recognize that even non-literary English possesses a wide range of styles, each characterized by its own particular combination of stylistic features. It makes sense to talk of normal and abnormal uses of language only in relation to a particular situation of utterance, since what is felt to be abnormal in one set of circumstances may seem perfectly normal in another.

OUTLINING, PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING

Read the following extract from an article on the problems students have when asking questions and: (i) produce an outline of the presented information

(ii) use your notes to write a selective summary by mentioning MAIN points and

paraphrasing adequately (100 words).

Asking questions, and engaging in questioning sequences in talk, represent a pervasive part of academic and

work life that is critical for getting information, contributing ideas, and being actively involved in the

environment. An analysis of the language needs of non-native speaker students in US universities (Ferris

1998) showed that 79 per cent of students rated 'in-class questions' as the category of talk most often required

in courses of study. Yet only 8 per cent of the students surveyed reported never experiencing difficulty with

this aspect of talk. Thomas and Hawes (1994) note that conversational exchanges with friends and family are

often concerned with maintaining social relationships, and that talk tends to be limited to quite short turns.

Exchanges in academic and work situations have more emphasis on the effective exchange of information,

and turns may be longer and exchanges more complex. This leads to the need for planning, organization, and

the use of structuring and strategies. It is often in such situations that second language learners lack

confidence and fluency.

To a large extent, communicative methodologies of recent years have focused on activities to get students

to speak, rather than on providing them with the means to interact (Burns and Joyce 1997). Symptomatically,

where questioning is concerned, instruction in the communicative classroom has typically entailed learners in

extensive practice of question-response sequences, rather than offering them insights into how questioning is

realized in interactional sequences, or making reference to the strategies that underlie questioning, so that

they could become more aware of sophisticated language use.

This situation may begin to change with the emergence of new methodologies aimed at raising learners'

awareness of the forms and features of spoken language at the level of text (Hughes and McCarthy 1998).

Tomlinson (1998) argues that pedagogy should develop the learners' ability to investigate and make

discoveries about authentic discourse. Feez (1998) and Burns and Joyce (1997) advocate text-focused

instruction and syllabus objectives that focus on the development of knowledge about spoken language,

while Madden and Rohlck (1997) and Riggenbach (1994) offer instructional activities based on the idea of

learners observing features in spoken texts.

In many language course syllabuses, questions feature in rather a minor way—typically at lower levels,

with a focus on the grammatical form, presented as question forms in various tenses. So the past simple form

‘I went’ is linked to the question form ‘Did you go?’, the passive form ‘it had been made’ is linked to the

question form ‘had it been made?’, and so forth. At higher levels, the language of questions and questioning

may not be focused on at all. For example, the 'language study section' in the very popular textbook Headway

Advanced (Soars and Soars) does not address this aspect of talk.

Some published ELT materials are almost entirely devoted to general speaking activities and

communication tasks, and scarcely incorporate any language focus. For example, the speaking syllabus in

Headway Advanced (Soars and Soars) consists entirely of topics for discussion. By contrast, the writing

syllabus comprises a number of specific language focused items, such as linking devices, analysing formal

style, and markers of opinion. New Ways in Teaching Speaking (Bailey and Savage 1994), presents over 100

speaking tasks. Only a small minority, however, focus on features of interactive talk. Task aims in the

'interaction' section of this work typically stress practice or affect, e. g. practice interaction and verbal

exchange, practice negotiating meaning, gain confidence in speaking. These are clearly worthwhile aims in

themselves since learners need to develop positive attitudes, and to practise speaking. However, learning also

implies progress in terms of skill development and awareness of language use. By focusing on practice alone,

the learner can remain tied to a limited awareness, and a potentially fossilized repertoire of interactive

strategies and language use.

Source: Basturkmen, H. (2001) ‘Descriptions of spoken language for higher level learners: the example of questioning’ in ELTJ

55/1: 4-13